Cable and Dish System Expand Porn Offerings

Lusting after the revenue generated by Internet porn, major cable companies have decided to intensify their offerings in the highly competitive smut market, according to the Washington Post National Weekly.

AT&T now intends to begin making available to its 2 million digital cable subscribers the Hot Network, a pay channel that offers much more explicit films than are currently available on most cable. DirecTV Inc., a satellite television subsidiary of General Motors, is also adding the more explicit shows.

The so-called “adult category” now returns to cable companies more than $300 million, but those revenues are expected to double this year with the addition of the raunchier offerings by major companies. The magazine said the cable industry is taking its cues from the Internet, where digital smut is expected to become a $3 billon industry during the next two years.

Rita Henley Jensen is founder of Women's eNews. A former senior writer for the National Law Journal and columnist for The New York Times Syndicate, Rita Henley Jensen has more than 30 years of experience in journalism and an armload of awards, including the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism Alumni award, the Hunter College Presidential Grant for Innovative Uses of Technology in Teaching, the Alicia Patterson fellowship, and the Lloyd P. Burns Public Service prize. Jensen is also a survivor of domestic violence and a former welfare mother who earned degrees from Ohio State University and Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. She is the grandmother of four, two granddaughters and two grandsons.

Findings from the July report “National Violence Against Women Survey,” sponsored by the National Institute of Justice and the Centers for Disease Control:Nearly 25 percent of surveyed women and 7.6 percent of surveyed men said they were raped or otherwise physically assaulted by a current or former spouse, cohabiting partner, or date at some time in their life. The survey also found that 41.5 percent of the women who were physically assaulted by an intimate partner were injured during their most recent assault, compared with 19.9 percent of the men.

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